Privacy & Cookies

Please take a moment to read our Privacy Policy so you know what choices you have about the information we may ask you for. This policy may change so it’s a good idea to come back and read through it again, from time to time.

In order to provide you with the full range of Sound Connections services, we are sometimes required to collect information about you.

1. Sound Connections is committed to safeguarding your personal information.
Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all laws concerning the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 1998 (these laws are referred to collectively in this Privacy Policy as the “data protection laws”).

2. The Sound Connections websites contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties.
These third party websites have their own privacy policies, including cookies, and we urge you to review them. They will govern the use of personal information you submit or are collected by cookies whilst visiting these websites. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.

3. What information will Sound Connections collect about me?
When you sign up to, participate in or receive a service from any Sound Connections website, such as newsletters, training courses, questionnaires etc we may ask for personal information about you. This can consist of information such as your name, email address, postal address, telephone or mobile number or date of birth. Different web pages may ask for different personal information.

Browsing the site
Our website is hosted in the UK in a data centre managed by Heart Internet. When you visit our website or access one of the files stored on our web server information about this request will be automatically stored in our log files to provide usage statistics, enable security features and aid technical troubleshooting. This is on the legal basis of legitimate commercial interests. In these cases your IP address at the time acts as a unique identifier and is stored along with information about your operating system, browser version and the pages/files you access. These logs are retained on the server for up to 30 days, after which they are automatically deleted. Heart Internet will also record a similar set of data for the purposes of data management and security. This data is retained by them for up to 3 months.

Like most businesses we use Google Analytics to help understand how our website is being discovered and interacted with and we use this information to help improve the experience for our visitors and make decisions about future development. Google Analytics presents us with aggregate information about the geographic location, device types and operating systems used by our website visitors, but not in a way that personally identifies you. Additionally Google will record your computer’s IP address and set a number of temporary cookies in your browser to help distinguish you as an individual visitor as you move around our site. In the interests of limiting the amount of data Google collects via our site we are using Google’s standard Analytics implementation and have not enabled any additional advertising features, such as remarketing tags which would tie your usage of our site in with your broader browsing habits. Any user-level data that is associated with Analytics’ cookies are retained for 14 months from your last activity on our site, after which it is automatically deleted from Analytics’ servers.

Signing up as a member
We use MailChimp for our email marketing. So when you sign-up as a member the information you submit, which can include your name, email address, job title, place of work and address, will be held securely by them and the information also made accessible to us. MailChimp’s servers are based in the United States, so your information may be transferred to, stored, or processed in the US. MailChimp participates in and has certified its compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, which certifies that is has adequate safeguards in place. As a respected email marketing provider MailChimp won’t share your information with any unauthorised third parties or contact you directly at any time – you can read their full privacy policy here: https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/

To help ensure that only those who really consent to receiving our emails are signed-up we use a double opt-in process where a confirmation email will be sent to the email address supplied with a link to click. Only after clicking that link will you be opted-in to receive our emails. At this point MailChimp will also collect your IP address, which along with a timestamp helps provide our evidence of consent should we need to provide this to the regulator.

By default we will retain your data in MailChimp for as long as you choose to stay subscribed or such time as we consider your account to be in-active (ie. you are no longer opening or engaging with our emails).

You can update your details or opt-out of our emails at any time using the ‘Unsubscribe’ or ‘Email Preferences’ links found at the bottom of every email we send via MailChimp. If you unsubscribe MailChimp will retain your email address for the purposes of a suppression list to ensure that no further marketing messages can be sent unless you actively choose to opt-in again.

In addition to the information you supply at sign-up MailChimp will also capture data about your interactions with our emails and website, such as which links you click within an email which pages you go on to visit on our website. It does this using a combination of tracking pixels and cookies. You can learn more about those in the Cookies section of this privacy policy. We use this information to help improve our product and provide more personalised messaging.

We may also combine the information you provide us at sign-up with data from other sources, such as our website, to help us improve the relevance of the emails we send you. For example if you register to attend one of our events we may record that information in your MailChimp subscriber profile to ensure that the content of our emails reflects that.

Making a donation
We use PayPal as an online payment processor, so when you make a donation through our website some of the information you submit is sent to them to allow your payment to be processed. PayPal is committed to handling your customer information with high standards of information security and will not reveal your financial information to any third party except with your express permission or if required to do so by a court order or other legal process. You can read the detail of their full privacy statement here: https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full

All the information you submit at checkout is transmitted securely via an encrypted https connection and the information we receive from these transactions is just that needed to process or support your order. That includes your name, email address, billing address and contact phone number, but does not include any sensitive financial information such as credit card numbers or bank account details. We will retain this information, along with the details of your purchase, for 3 years as part of our financial records.

Using the contact form
When you submit one of our online contact forms the information you provide is sent to us by email. Your name and email address are all collected as required fields and we will also record your IP address and a timestamp for the purposes of fulfilling our obligation under data protection regulations to appropriately log submissions of personal data.

On its way to us your message will pass through anti-spam filters operated by Heart Internet and Microsoft to identify poor quality content or viruses. These are automated processes with no human involvement. These third parties will only access email content under very limited circumstances, such as investigating fraudulent or abusive activity.

Enquiry emails are only available to limited number of team members who are all bound by a strict confidentially agreement. We treat all information provided as confidential and won’t share it beyond the company without your explicit consent. Our default retention period is 24 months from the point of last contact. So we will delete your data after 24 months if there has been no further correspondence in that time after which, but if there is deletion will be up to 24 months from the latest time of contact.

Because your submission can include attachments and other information we can’t limit what information you share with us. We request that you only share information directly relating to your enquiry and that you have the appropriate consent to disclose the information you share with us. It is important to be aware that email is not considered a secure means of communication so please limit the extent of the personal or commercially sensitive information you share with us this way.

4. By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Sound Connections and its service providers to provide you with the services you select.

5. Sound Connections also uses cookies and collects IP addresses.
Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your internet browser on to your computer’s hard drive. Like most website providers, Sound Connections uses cookies to enable us to make a link between you and the information you have provided to our website and therefore provide you with personalised content so that we can give you a better experience when you return. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, although you can choose not to.

Essential cookies
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our websites and to use some of its features. But you can still block or delete them by changing your browser preferences.

wp_woocommerce_session (Sound Connections) – Set by our website when you make an online donation. Expires after 48 hours.

woocommerce_items_in_cart (Sound Connections) – Used to temporarily store information about your cart when you make an online donation. Expires at the end of your session.

woocommerce_cart_hash (Sound Connections) – Used to temporarily store information about your cart when you make an online donation. Expires at the end of your session.

Non-essential cookies
These cookies are used to enhance the performance and functionality of our websites. They are non-essential but without them certain functionality may become unavailable.

YSC (YouTube) – used to support playback of embedded YouTube videos. Expires at the end of your session.

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE (YouTube) – used to support playback of embedded YouTube videos. Expires after 8 months.

PREF (YouTube) – used to support playback of embedded YouTube videos. Expires after 8 months.

Analytics cookies
These cookies collect information to help us understand how our website is being used or customise it in order to enhance your experience.

_ga (Google Analytics) – used to distinguish between users. Expires after 2 years.

_gat (Google Analytics) – used to distinguish between users. Expires after 24 hours.

An IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet). We use analysis software to look at IP addresses and cookies for the purpose of enhancing your user experience. This information is not used to develop a personal profile of you and the log files are regularly purged.

6. How will Sound Connections use the information they collect about me?
Sound Connections will use your personal information for a number of purposes including the following:

for “service administration purposes”, which means that the Sound Connections may contact you for reasons related to the service you have signed up for (e.g. to provide you with password reminders or to notify you that a particular service has been suspended for maintenance);

to contact you about a submission you have made to the websites, including any content you provide.

to personalise the way Sound Connections content is presented to you, IP addresses are used to identify the location of users, the number of visits from different countries and also to block disruptive use; and

to analyse and improve the services offered on the Sound Connections website e.g. to provide you with the most user-friendly navigation experience.

to enable us to review, develop and improve the products, services and special offers online.

to occasionally carry out market research.

to send you details of Sound Connections promotions, products, services, special offers and rewards that we think will be of interest to you. It’s up to you to decide whether or not you want to receive this information.

Where Sound Connections proposes using your personal information for any other uses we will ensure that we notify you first. You will also be given the opportunity to withhold or withdraw your consent for your use other than as listed above.

7. When will the Sound Connections contact me?
Sound Connections may contact you:

in relation to the functioning of any service you have signed up for in order to ensure that Sound Connections can deliver the services to you;

where you have opted to receive further correspondence;

in relation to any contribution you have made to Sound Connections, e.g. uploading demos or taking part in a video blog

to invite you to participate in surveys about Sound Connections services (participation is always voluntary); and for marketing purposes where you have specifically agreed to this

8. Will Sound Connections share my personal information with anyone else?
Generally, we will only use your information within Sound Connections. However, like most businesses we rely on a number of third-party providers to support our day-to-day operations, for example in areas such as maintaining or improving our website and other digital services. Some of these service providers will by necessity have access to or be directly involved in processing or storing a subset of the personal information you share with us.

All our third-party data processors have been carefully chosen as service suppliers who also practice responsible data handling. We believe that each has in place appropriate protections to ensure the security of the data we store or process with them and have clear policies for how they treat that data. But if in doubt you should review their individual Privacy Policies.

Before using or sharing your information with third parties in ways not described here or previously authorised by you, we will provide you with notice and an opportunity to control the further use or disclosure of your personal information.

9. Will Sound Connections share my personal data with anyone beyond the European Economic Area (EEA)?
In rare circumstances we will transfer your information outside of the European Economic Area. We will only do this with your informed consent, when it is necessary to perform a contract we have with you or where the receiving organisation has adequate safeguards in place – for example certification under the EU-US Privacy Shield framework.

10. Protecting your information
Any information sent to us is stored on a secure server so that it can only be read by authorised personnel.

11. Marketing our products and services
We may, subject to your consent, use your personal information to contact you with information about Sound Connections promotions.
If you no longer wish to receive such information from Sound Connections, please hit the unsubscribe link in our communications.

12. Offensive or inappropriate content
If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on the Sound Connections website or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on a Sound Connections website, Sound Connections may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.

Where Sound Connections reasonably believes that you are or may be in breach of any of the laws of England or Wales (e.g. because content you have posted may be defamatory), Sound Connections may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, school e-mail/Internet provider or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.

13. What if I am a user aged 16 or under?
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the Sound Connections website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

14. How long will Sound Connections keep my personal information?
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant service or promotion.
Where you contribute to the Sound Connections website we will generally only keep your content for as long as is reasonably required for the purpose(s) for which it was submitted.

15. Can I find out what personal information Sound Connections holds about me?
Under the Data Protection Act you have the right to request a copy of the personal information Sound Connections holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected.